A bowser is a tanker of various kinds, named for Sylvanus Bowser who is credited with inventing the automobile fuel pump.

Water

The term bowser is used by water companies in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

to refer to mobile

water tank A water tank is a container for storing water. Water tanks are used to provide storage of water for use in many applications, drinking water, irrigation agriculture, fire suppression, agricultural farming, both for plants and livestock, chemi ...

s deployed to distribute

fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

in emergencies where the normal system of piped distribution has broken down or is insufficient.

Fuel

KrAZ-258 airport tank truck in Kyrgyzstan

Bowser also describes a

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...

tanker used to deliver fuel to

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

s or airfields. The term also describes refuelling boats that supply seaplanes, army fuel tankers used for combat resupply, and vehicles that fill heavy construction equipment such as hydraulic

excavator Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression fro ...

s and

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

s. Even aircraft have been described as "flying fuel bowsers" when configured to ferry fuel to support a forward operation. The related verb, "bowsing", is used in the fuel distribution industry to refer to the practice of customers of one fuel distributor to be able to collect fuel from a depot (including retail stations) of a second fuel distributor, at the prices of the first distributor. As such, it is a method of mutual distribution, improving fuel access for customers while reducing the main costs of each distributor. Being a commercial service, it normally applies to DERV (Diesel Engined Road Vehicle ]) rather than

petrol Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...

(

gasoline Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...

Other liquids

At the former nuclear research facility at

Dounreay Dounreay (; gd, Dùnrath) is a small settlement and the site of two large nuclear establishments on the north coast of Caithness in the Highland area of Scotland. It is on the A836 road west of Thurso. The nuclear establishments were create ...

in the far north of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, the word bowser is used to describe various moveable (but not wheeled) vessels that contain

alkali metals The alkali metals consist of the chemical elements lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K),The symbols Na and K for sodium and potassium are derived from their Latin names, ''natrium'' and ''kalium''; these are still the origins of the names ...

(

sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable iso ...

NaK In data networking, telecommunications, and computer buses, an acknowledgment (ACK) is a signal that is passed between communicating processes, computers, or devices to signify acknowledgment, or receipt of message, as part of a communicatio ...

), protected from oxidation by an

inert gas An inert gas is a gas that does not readily undergo chemical reactions with other chemical substances and therefore does not readily form chemical compounds. The noble gases often do not react with many substances and were historically referred to ...

. The word may also have been in use at the Atomic Energy Authority's (now UKAEA's) southern sites.

References

{{Portal, Transport Basically, Bowsers are basically used to deliver fuel from one location to another. Thes
fuel bowser
helps in refuelling and saves lots of efforts. Trucks Liquid containers